Entangled Lives
Uncanny Animals in Cosmopolitical Documentary
1. Perfect Creatures
Before Laika, there were Dezik and Tsygan (Gypsy); Chizhik and Mishka (Little Bear); Albina (Whitey) and Kozyavka; Knopka (Button) and Malyshka (Little One). After her, there were Belka (Squirrel) and Strelka (Arrow); Otvazhnaya (Brave One) and Snezhinka (Snowflake), and the rabbit Marfusa; Zvedochka (Little Star); Ugolyok (Coal) and Veterok (Breeze). Some died; many survived and were sent back; some ran away. As Olesya Turkina recounts in her wonderful book Soviet Space Dogs,
[i]t is estimated that between July 1951 and November 1960 over thirty suborbital flights were launched … In all, of the dogs who participated in those flights, at least fifteen died. The canine crews consisted of two dogs. This was a precaution in case one of the dogs displayed a non-typical, unusual reaction. Some of these dogs made multiple flights on geophysical rockets (Turkina 2014: 68).1
Those that survived became stars, celebrated in children’s stories, pop songs, and animated cartoons. “One day these unknown strays were living on the street, the next they were shown on television, and their portraits published in newspapers” (Turkina 2014: 13).
But it was Laika (Лайка, “barker,” from the Russian verb laiat, to bark) who captured the hearts of the world, as the first living creature to orbit the planet aboard Sputnik 2, before perishing about five hours into the mission due to inadequate thermal insulation in her capsule. After its orbit decayed several months later, the capsule was incinerated on re-entry into Earth atmosphere (Turkina 2014: 110). Memorials were erected in Paris and Tokyo; as Turkina puts it, “the dog’s valiant little face with its pointy ears appeared on the front page of every newspaper around the world. Her poignant image came to symbolise both heroism and the human capacity for compassion” (Turkina 2014: 81-82).
After Laika, according to the Museum of Jurassic Technology, “10 more dogs in 6 separate missions followed Laika’s courageous example culminating in the flight of Zvedochka (daughter of the stars).” The Museum’s memorial tribute to the Soviet space dogs, “The Lives of Perfect Creatures”, includes oil paintings, notecards, a locket set, and a View-Master reel.